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Two police officers were arrested in the shooting of student Katlego Monareng, but the student council believes that both the Tshwane University of Technology and the police need to be held accountable.
They believe that the institution sided with the police following the death of Pan Africanist Student Movement of Azania member, Katlego Monareng, on August 23.
Monareng was shot at the institution’s Soshanguve North campus while students were fighting over ballot papers which were allegedly smuggled during the student council elections.
The Independent Police Investigative Directorate arrested two police officers, a constable and a captain, this morning in connection with that incident.
In their statement police claimed that they fired warning shots at the ground with R5 rifles.
The president of the student representative council at the Soshanguve campus, Katlego Makyobola, said they were relieved that the officers were arrested but they were not yet ready to forgive and forget because the police had “misled the public and that is unacceptable”.
“The police station, together with the police officials of Soshanguve, the ones that are believed to be the perpetrators, issued a statement to say they were never involved in any shooting and they also convinced the university to issue a statement that no police official was involved in that incident,” said Makyobola.
He said all they needed was the university to conduct an investigation before releasing a statement that the police did not shoot a student.
“We were devastated because it proved beyond reasonable doubt that the university is never on the students’ side. They sided with an external organisation at the expense of their very own student. The university should have conducted an investigation before saying that the police are the ones who shot comrade Katlego.”
TUT spokesperson Willa de Ruyter said the university did not side with the police but allowed proper investigations to take place, because you are “innocent until proven guilty”.
“We never denied anything. What we said was every person needs fairness and there must be investigations to determine who was responsible for the shooting. TUT never took anyone’s side,” said De Ruyter.
“The investigation ended with the two police officers being arrested and they still need to be treated fairly. You are innocent until proven guilty so they need to appear in court and the court has to look at the evidence and determine whether the evidence is enough to find them guilty.”
ANC Gauteng spokesperson Tasneem Motara said they welcomed the arrest of the two policemen and that this would send a strong message that no one is above the law.
“It indicates that the investigation was conducted swiftly, and that justice will now take its course. However, as the ANC, we are concerned that those who are trained and employed to protect South Africans have now found themselves on the wrong side of the law.”
The ANC called on the investigative directorate to investigate the matter thoroughly in order to get to the bottom of the events.
“We also have confidence in the court procedures that will follow, in order to conclude this case expeditiously. The Constitution of the country recognises the right to life as sacrosanct, more so, the life of a young student who still had a whole life to live.”
The two police officers are expected to appear at the Soshanguve Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday on a charge of murder.
